In memory of Armistice Day, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the
eleventh month, when World War I ended,
let’s help the military get us off of oil
and to deal with climate change so fewer people will die in wars.

Climate change is accelerating, and it will place unparalleled strains on
American military and intelligence agencies in coming years
by causing ever more disruptive events around the globe,
the nation’s top scientific research group said in a
report
issued Friday.

The group, the National
Research Council, says in a study commissioned by the
C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies that
clusters of apparently unrelated events exacerbated by a warming climate
will create more frequent but unpredictable crises in water supplies,
food markets, energy supply chains and public health systems.

Hurricane Sandy provided a foretaste
of what can be expected more often in the near future, the report’s
lead author, John D. Steinbruner, said in an interview.

“This is the sort of thing we were talking about,” said
Mr. Steinbruner, a longtime authority on national security. “You
can debate the specific contribution of global warming to that storm. But
we’re saying climate extremes are going to be more frequent, and
this was an example of what they could mean. We’re also saying it
could get a whole lot worse than that.”

…

Climate-driven crises could lead to internal instability or international
conflict and might force the United States to provide humanitarian
assistance or, in some cases, military force to protect vital energy,
economic or other interests, the study said.

“In Iraq… the lines would stretch up to ten miles long under
the hot sun, under constant risk of attack by extremists. I realized
then just how vulnerable it makes any country to be dependent on
oil, especially the United States, which uses nearly a quarter of
the world’s supply.”

Watersheds are topographic areas where all the rain that falls eventually ends up in a namesake steam, river, lake, or estuary.

These are our local watersheds. Purple is the Little River Watershed, blue is the Withlacoochee Watershed, and Valdosta is where the Little River flows south into the Withlacoochee. Green is the Alapaha watershed, and Tifton is where all three meet. Every drop of rain or used well water or wastewater overflow or pesticide runoff or soapy shower water or clearcut mud that runs downhill into one of these rivers is in their (and our) watersheds.

Becoming greener doesn’t just mean a municipality’s adding a pleasant new park here and there, or planting more trees, although both components may be useful parts of a larger effort. How a town is designed and developed is related to how well it functions, how well it functions is related to how sustainable it really is, and how sustainable it is, is directly related to how it affects its local waters and those who use those same waters downstream.

Compact, mixed-use, well-designed in-town growth can take some of the pressure off of its opposite on the outskirts — or beyond the outskirts — of towns and cities. We know that sprawling growth is generally pretty bad for maintaining environmental quality in a region (air pollution from cars that become necessary in such circumstances, displacement of open land, water pollution from new roads and shopping centers that are begot by such growth patterns).

Amelioration of today’s drug problem requires Americans to
understand the significance of the 80-20 ratio. Twenty percent of
American drinkers consume 80 percent of the alcohol sold here. The
same 80-20 split obtains among users of illicit drugs.

About 3 million people — less than 1 percent of America’s
population — consume 80 percent of illegal hard drugs.
Drug-trafficking organizations can be most efficiently injured by
changing the behavior of the 20 percent of heavy users, and we are
learning how to do so. Reducing consumption by the 80 percent of
casual users will not substantially reduce the northward flow of
drugs or the southward flow of money.

Will-like, he ignores the real reasons we’re locking up so many people
(corporate greed), but he does get at the consequences:
Continue reading →

The war on drugs causes violence, poverty, and illiteracy in Latin
America that drives illegal immigration into the U.S., for the profit
of Monsanto, military contractors, and private prison companies.
Does that seem right to you?

The war on drugs in Mexico, partially funded by hundreds of millions of
dollars in U.S. government assistance, has not only failed to curb the
trade but intensified horrific violence, corruption and human rights
abuses, writes Neal Peirce.

For most Americans, the recent news of popular demonstrations in
Mexico was probably a small diversion from the daily tide of bloody
global reports from such faraway hot spots as Pakistan, Syria, Libya,
Afghanistan and Bahrain.

Why worry, most of us likely concluded, if thousands of Mexicans are
marching in the streets, protesting the horrific violence and high death
toll in their nation’s raging drug war? Isn’t that their problem?

It’s true, the news reports focus less on the American role, more on
growing anger with the government of President Felipe Calderón and the
meager returns from the massive police and military crackdown on the
drug trade he inaugurated in 2006.

Since then, more than 37,000 Mexicans have been murdered, often tortured
and brutalized before their deaths, as cartels battle for control of drug
smuggling routes and brazenly assassinate anyone, official or average
citizen, they think is in their way.

The hard lesson is that the war on drug dealers, decreed by Calderón and
partially funded by hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. government
assistance, has not only failed to curb the trade but intensified horrific
violence, corruption and human-rights abuses.

Local food is more than healthier, it’s even more than tasty.
It’s also local economy and local community.

In the U.K., small local shops are being replaced by big-box supermarkets.
A widespread argument for this conversion is that consumers get
more choice.
Peter Wilby wrote in the Guardian 3 May 2011 about
why that’s not good enough:

Even the “good for consumers” defence of the big stores requires
scrutiny. Supermarkets may offer mangoes and kiwi fruit as a blessed
relief to generations who recall the surly greengrocer grunting “no
demand for it” when asked for anything out of the ordinary. But the
option to buy locally grown produce is increasingly closed off; many
varieties of English fruit disappeared long ago. Supermarkets stock food
not for its taste, but for its longevity and appearance. Conventional
economists count numbers, assuming that a huge increase in toilet roll
colours represents an unqualified gain to the consumer. They neglect
more subtle dimensions of choice.

The central issue, however, is whether “what the consumer wants” should
close down the argument. What people want as consumers may not be what
they want as householders, community members, producers, employees or
entrepreneurs. The loss of small shops drains a locality’s economic and
social capital. Money spent in independent retail outlets tends to stay
in the community, providing work for local lawyers and accountants,
plumbers and decorators, window cleaners and builders.

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) has a new board member, Tom Call, local realtor and pesticider:

Roy Copeland

Tom Call

Mary Gooding

Norman Bennett

Jerry Jennett,
Chairman

Since VLCIA’s website has no picture for Tom Call,
LAKE has used the one from his
Plaxo page.

He’s on the board of
Homeland Defense Corp.,
which does “Custom Automated Mosquito and Insect Misting Systems”
and says this:

Thomas B. Call graduated from the University of Georgia
with a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture. After a career
in the agricultural chemicals industry, Tom branched
out into real estate. Today, he is the owner of Coldwell
Banker Premier Real Estate, and owns a number of successful
businesses specializing in residential and commercial real
estate development.
www.Valdostarealtors.com